February 2, 2015

Monster Man Makes Good: an interview with Hunter Shea, author of "Island of the Forbidden"

Hunter Shea is the author of the novels Forest of Shadows, Swamp Monster Massacre, Evil Eternal, Sinister Entity and The Graveyard Speaks. His stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including Dark Moon Digest, Morpheus Tales and the upcoming anthology, Shocklines : Fresh Voices in Terror. His obsession with all things horrific has led him to real life exploration of the paranormal, interviews with exorcists and other things that would keep most people awake with the lights on. He is also half of the Monster Men video podcast, a fun look at the world of horror. (source: Amazon)

Gef:
What was the impetus behind Island of the Forbidden? With this being
the third appearance of Jessica Backman, was it simply an
inevitability that you'd have to revisit her?

Hunter:
I wanted to explore what would happen to a person as strong willed as
Jessica after facing something so terrifyingly evil (in the book
Sinister Entity). There was no way she could ever be the same person.
But what happens when you have a gift, or a curse, and a situation
calls for you to go back to face the very thing you now fear the
most? In the beginning of the book, Jessica has isolated herself from
her friends and family and the world. When she gets called to the
island, she’s thrown into a new level of isolation, stuck in a
place where there’s nowhere to run.

Plus,
I absolutely wanted to write another book about Jessica and Eddie.
And I feel that there still more tales to tell.

Gef:
Is there any change to your approach to a story when revisiting a
setting or character from a previous work? Do find any kind of gear
shift between what might be called series work as opposed to a
stand-alone?

Hunter:
The best part is that I already knew these characters better than the
back of my hand. It feels like coming home, in a way. So in that
sense, the writing is easier because I’m not building characters
and their world from scratch. The challenge I’ve presented myself
with the Jessica books is writing each so it can be enjoyed as a
standalone novel. I hate plucking a book from the shelf and midway
through realize it’s part 3 of 7 and I’m utterly lost. Each book
is its own story, from start to finish, with just enough backstory
sprinkled in so you don’t feel like you have to stop and read the
previous book before you can go on.

Gef:
What kind of local folklore influences your taste for horror? Whether
ghosts, monsters, or some other supernatural element, does your neck
of the woods offer much by way of inspiration?

Hunter:
I grew up in the Bronx in the 70s and 80s, so the horror that I
experienced was real. There was no sense worrying about the monster
under your bed. My biggest fear growing up was having people break
into the house in the middle of the night. I was super aware of every
sound the house made and quick to panic. It didn’t help that I was
mugged at knifepoint when I was 10, two punks taking off with the
bike I had just gotten for my birthday. So, with that kind of
background, when I read horror fiction I wanted it to be something
that could transport me to another world, where the scares could
never bleed into my own. That’s how I got hooked on ghosts and
monsters, my bread and butter now. Moving into a haunted house in the
mid 90s solidified my fascination with ghosts and the afterlife.
Adding to that has been my love affair with cryptozoology over the
past several years. I’m a sucker for a Bigfoot or unknown creature
story.

Gef:
The Monster Men podcast is still going strong with Jack Campisi.
Anything from that work that has helped or hindered your writing?

Hunter:
We started the podcast as a promotional tool to get the word out
about my first book, Forest of Shadows. We figured we’d do a couple
of episodes and that would be it. We’re now 75 episodes in and
getting requests from writers, publishers, directors and paranormal
groups to be on the show. I can confidently say it’s only helped my
writing. Fans of the show have gone on to read my books and have
become my biggest advocates. They see that I absolutely love the
genre and I’m not going to give them a load of crap. Plus it gets
to show folks that horror writers are not monsters. We have a lot of
fun!

Gef:
What do you consider to be the strength or saving grace of this
genre?

Hunter:
There are so many avenues a writer can travel in horror. First you
can pick between ghosts, killers, monsters, demons, you name it. Then
you dig down into subsections of each. Then you go even further,
deciding the tone of the story. Do you want quiet, creeping horror
(like Ron Malfi), in your face, cringing gore (think Edward Lee),
horror with a bizarre twist (Joe Lansdale), historical (Brian
Moreland), gothic (Jonathan Janz), balls to the wall (the late JF
Gonzalez)? There are so many wonderful voices out there telling
chilling tales with mad skills. I think people tend to judge horror
solely by what they see in movies, and often what’s put out there
is the worst the genre has to offer. If they decide to dive into the
deep end, past the King and Koontz kiddie pool where most people
linger, they’re going to discover writers and stories that will
stay with them for a lifetime.

Gef:
What's the worst piece of writing advice you ever received? Or what
piece of writing advice do you wish would just go away?

Hunter:
That you should attend as many writer’s conferences as possible to
learn your craft and make connections. What a load of crap. You want
to work on your craft? Read, then write. I went to my only writer’s
convention in NYC on the advice I was getting from people and
magazines devoted to the art of writing. The con cost me more money
that I had to spend at the time, but I really wanted to do everything
I could to break through. It was a day of talks by people giving lots
of general advice, which I wrote down like a court stenographer. Then
I went to listen to a talk by Joseph Finder. I found myself seated
between Carol Higgins Clark and Elmore Leonard. I was numb. Elmore
leaned over to me and said, “You don’t need this nonsense, kid.
Just go home and write and keep reading and writing. 99.9 percent of
the people you see around you will never become writers. They just
like going to conventions.” Thank you Elmore Leonard! He saved me
thousands of dollars and deserves at least partial credit for my
being where I am today.

Gef:
What kind of guilty pleasures do you have when it comes to books or
movies or whatnot?

Hunter:
I know I criticized awful horror movies in an earlier question, but
I’m also drawn to them like a dog to a tree. Sometimes I think I
enjoy the bad ones more than the good. I like to think this is how I
hone my own writing skills. Like when it comes to management. I’ve
been working in corporate offices for 25 years now. Starting out, I
had some of the most mind boggling dummy heads as managers. I
listened to their prattle, watched the asinine things they did and
learned from them. When it was my time to manage, I did the opposite
of everything that’s ever been done to me. And it’s worked
divinely. So, do bad horror movies show me what not to do? I like to
think so. If any movie producer wants to give me a shot to prove my
theory, I’ll book my flight to Hollywood.

Gef:
What projects are you cooking up that folks can expect in the near
future, and how can folks keep up with your shenanigans?

Hunter:
Other
than Island of the Forbidden, I have 2 other books coming out in
2015. July will see the release of my second Pinnacle paperback,
Tortures of the Damned. Think of post apocalypse with a Roger Corman
chaser. It’s bleak and scary because most of it can actually
happen. Then, in the fall, Samhain will release my next cryptid
novel, The Dover Demon. It’s about a creature that was seen in
Massachusetts in 1977 and how it’s not only returned, but possibly
never left. It’s a blend of scifi, horror and action and I believe
one of the only fictional works about the Dover Demon ever written.
I’m working on plenty more, so come on by my old blog and chain
at www.huntershea.com to
get the latest news. Thank you so much for having me here!

2 comments:

Oh. Here ya go: Jessica Backman has been called to help a strange family living on a haunted island in Charleston Harbor. Ormsby Island was the site of a brutal massacre two decades ago, and now the mysterious Harper family needs someone to exorcise the ghosts that still call it home. The phantoms of over one hundred children cannot rest.

But something far more insidious is living on the island. When the living and the dead guard their true intentions, how can Jessica discover just what sort of evil lurks on Ormsby Island? And why is Jessica the only one who can plumb its dark depths?